Federal officials have quietly begun fast-tracking cases through immigration courts, pushing dozens of additional cases onto the dockets on certain days in an effort to more quickly process asylum and other claims.
The fast-tracking, which is also intended to increase the pace of deportations, started without any formal notification or announcement from the Trump administration, according to immigration lawyers and court officials interviewed by The New York Times. But a surge of cases has been apparent in numerous courts around the country. Some judges have seen their caseloads double and triple, prompting worries that cases are being rushed through, violating due process rights.
At separate courthouses in Annandale and Sterling, Va., in recent days, Times reporters observed long lines and packed dockets. Some immigration judges saw their caseloads more than double, with as many as 100 adults waiting for their cases to be heard. In Annandale, the caseloads have included dozens of unaccompanied minors.
Lines were also evident at a courthouse in downtown Chicago on a recent weekday, with families spilling out of waiting areas and into hallways. Many cases were being processed in small groups, or in several instances with more than two dozen people appearing at once.
And in New Orleans, lawyers saw the number of cases increase to more than 200 on Monday and Tuesday in one courtroom alone. The judges at that courthouse typically take only about 30 to 40 cases per day, lawyers said. The morning dockets were so packed and chaotic that lawyers wishing to observe or monitor the proceedings were not allowed in to watch.
Federal officials say that speeding through cases will help alleviate backlogs that have led some asylum and immigration relief claims to languish for years. The slow pace of the process, they contend, creates incentives for people to enter the United States to file claims that may be weak or invalid.
The Justice Department said in a statement that clearing the court backlog was a top priority for the administration, and that it was hearing the cases fairly and in accordance with the law.
An official with the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which is part of the Justice Department and oversees the immigration court system, said the larger caseloads were a result of the court hiring new immigration judges, and described them as necessary to clear a backlog of upward of 3 million cases this year, according to federal figures.
But immigration lawyers and rights groups counter that the sudden acceleration of the process risks errors, denies immigrants due process and leaves people with little time to find lawyers.
“Everything related to these large dockets or mass dockets is shrouded in such a strange secrecy,” said Gracie Willis, an attorney with the National Immigration Project, a nonprofit that provides legal services for immigrants. “Our confirmation that they were even happening really came from going to the court on Monday and seeing the large lines of people standing outside,” she added, referring to the proceedings she observed in New Orleans.
The surge comes at a time of upheaval for Mr. Trump’s immigration strategy. On Friday, a federal judge rejected the government’s indefinite hold on asylum applications filed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and on immigration applications from people from 39 countries who had been unable to obtain green cards and citizenship. The ruling is not expected to have a major impact on immigration courts.
This week, the Supreme Court also declined to review a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit requiring the government to take more steps to notify immigrants of their hearing dates if their notices are returned in the mail.
The judges who remain have been under pressure to issue deportation orders and rule against asylum cases, a Times investigation found. The rate of asylum grants is the lowest since 2009, according to data analyzed by The Times.
Typical “master” calendar hearings are already crowded sessions where an immigration judge can handle dozens of cases at a time, all of which can be in different stages. They review claims, consider challenges and schedule court dates for people seeking asylum, humanitarian protections and an array of other forms of legal relief that can temporarily shield immigrants from deportation or set them on the path to legal permanent residency.
Many attorneys have taken to informally calling the new, heavily packed proceedings “mega master” calendar hearings.
In New Orleans, Ms. Willis, the attorney, said the dockets she watched included a mix of people: respondents who were appearing in immigration court for the first time, along with immigrants who had trials already set for 2027 but were called in for minor updates on their cases, such as the verification of their addresses.
Some had received notices of their new court appearances the month before, but others had been called in only two weeks earlier, or even more recently, she said.
Lawyers said that they had observed judges taking in groups of people at a time, despite their different pleadings and cases. In one instance, a judge saw 15 people at once, running through Arabic, Spanish and Creole interpretations, Ms. Willis said.
On Monday and Tuesday, 89 people in one court alone were declared absent, and were therefore deportable, she added. “And that is not because they were ‘the worst of the worst.’ It is because they had a hearing scheduled that they were not able to attend for a variety of reasons,” Ms. Willis said.
In Courtroom 11 in Chicago on May 26, Judge Peter A. Kim addressed a group of more than 20 immigrants, a reporter observed. He told them that they had 20 days to submit their cases in writing, and warned that the next hearing would be their final opportunity to make the case to remain in the United States.
Alex, a maintenance worker from Honduras, and his adult son were among the immigrants who received the warning. Alex spoke to The Times on the condition that only his first name be used, because he fears government retaliation.
He and his son applied for asylum and obtained temporary humanitarian passage into the country in 2023, but the form of relief is set to expire in December, and their asylum petition remains pending.
He said that he worried that the government’s push to quickly close their case would leave them with no relief. “All we can have is hope and faith in God,” he said.
“It is not a bad thing to want to prioritize older cases,” Briana Carlson, an immigration lawyer who represents clients in Sterling, Va., said of the case dockets. “But when we are taking away the power of judges to have individualized hearings, that is problematic.”
In Annandale, immigrants and their children recently filled a courtroom as a judge heard about 60 cases during hearings that stretched more than seven hours last week.
Yuvora Nong, an immigration lawyer in Virginia, showed up to the courthouse for a separate hearing scheduled for his client at 1 p.m. one day. But the judge, Raphael Choi, was still working through the day’s caseload surge, and had 15 cases left to hear by day’s end.
Judge Choi told Mr. Nong that his client’s case would have to be postponed — to May 2027.
On May 29, Maria Martinez, another Annandale lawyer, had clients from El Salvador and Venezuela sitting in her law office for more than eight hours as they waited to go before a judge by video. They had been scheduled to appear around 8:30 a.m., but as the judge toiled through a packed caseload, the wait stretched on.
“Family members had to bring them food because they were too scared to leave the office and miss their hearing,” Ms. Martinez said.
Minutes before the judge’s computer shut down for the day, he bunched the last six cases together, Ms. Martinez said. Speeding through, he did not even have time to check whether her clients were present, she added.
Reporting was contributed by Robert Chiarito from Chicago, Madeleine Ngo from Annandale, Va., Orlando Mayorquín from San Diego and Allison McCann from New York.
